About Me

Although I haven't gotten a western made yet, there's interest in a western series I've created (on paper). If you'd like to take a look at the sort of things I write, please visit my website, www.henrycparke.com. Thanks for looking!

MY Q&A WITH INSP-TV

HENRY ON ‘WRITER’S BLOCK’

On July 30th, 2015, I was the guest of hosts Bobbi Jean Bell and Jim Christina on ‘Writer’s Block’, their L.A. TALK-RADIO talk-show about the art and craft of writing. You can click PLAY to hear it, or DOWNLOAD to download it.

ROUND-UP ON THE RADIO!

Last Christmastime I was a guest on AROUND THE BARN, and had a great time talking about the Round-up, my writing, and Gene Autry’s Christmas music. To listen, click HERE.

Other Stuff I Write

While this blog is strictly about Western stuff, I also write another blog, Stalling Tactics, which is about anything else. If you'd like to read my most recent post, COSTUME DRAMA TRAUMA, go HERE.

Tuesday, May 10, 2016

On Tuesday, May 10th,
at 9 pm, the California arts documentary series ARTBOUND returns to KCET with
CHARLES LUMMIS: REIMAGINING THE AMERICAN WEST.
While not a name on the tip of many tongues today, Lummis’ contributions
to the history of the Southwest United States, particularly Los Angeles, would
be hard to overstate. On Saturday, a
panel featuring many of interviewees in the film discussed Lummis and the
documentary at the first museum in Los Angeles, which Lummis built, The Southwest Museum, surrounded by one
of the world’s finest collections of American Indian art and artifacts, which
Lummis collected.

Lummis watches over producer Juan Devis' shoulder

Charles Fletcher
Lummis, born in Massachusetts in 1859, grew up at a time of
individualists. He was classmate of
Theodore Roosevelt at Harvard, but dropped out, wrote for a Cincinnati
newspaper, but quit when he got a better offer – working for the Los Angeles Times. He proposed that he walk to L.A. from
Cincinnati, and became a media sensation from the newspaper columns he posted
en route. His contact with American
Indians along the way would greatly influence the rest of his life.

Lummis' granddaughter, poet Suzanne Lummis

After 143 days afoot,
he arrived and was made city editor of Times. It was 1885, which was, as Lummis’ granddaughter
pointed out, the year that RAMONA-author and Indian rights activist Helen Hunt
Jackson died. It was a passing of the
torch. Los Angeles was in a time of
transition – it had a population of only 12,000 when Lummis arrived – and he
saw, with concern, that as the numbers quickly swelled, the history of the
Indian and Mexican and Spanish people who had lived there before the Anglos was
disappearing. While a sincere and
enthusiastic booster for Los Angeles, he did not want to see a homogenized
city, and used his skills as an anthropologist, writer, poet, and photographer
to both preserve the rapidly fading past, and make a convincing argument that
this past should be incorporated in the city’s future. Neither a paralyzing stroke – he healed, nor
blindness – it proved temporary, could slow him down. I highly recommend this documentary, and hope
it will soon be available for viewing outside of L.A.

‘6 BULLETS TO HELL’
MOVIE AND VIDEO GAME PREMIERE
TUESDAY!

In a very clever bit of
synergy and cross-promotion, Tuesday, May 10th marks the release of
both 6 BULLETS TO HELL the movie on iTunes, and 6 BULLETS TO HELL the video
game. The film stars Tanner Beard,
Crispian Belfrage and Russell Cummings, and Round-up readers have been following
6 BULLETS since it rolled camera in 2013, and as I said in my review – read it
HERE – 6 BULLETS is a new Spaghetti Western filmed in the holy ground of
Almeria, Spain, and masterfully captures the spirit of the originals. Here’s the trailer from the movie.

CHECK OUT MY MOTHER’S
DAY COLUMN AT INSP

I had the pleasure of
writing a guest Mother’s Day column for the INSP-TV blog, honoring actress
Barbara Stanwyck, and one of her most famous characters, Victoria Barkley from
THE BIG VALLEY. It gave me the opportunity
of interviewing her co-star from TROOPER HOOK, Earl Holliman, and Kate Edelman,
whose father, Louis Edelman, co-created and produced THE BIG VALLEY, who both
shared their memories of ‘Missy’ with me.
You can read it (and I wish you would) HERE.

‘UNDERGROUND’ SEASON
ONE ENDS WED. WITH A MARATHON

If you, like me, were
late to discover WGN’s series about slaves escaping through the Underground
Railroad, you can catch up starting Wednesday, May 11th at 10 a.m.
(check your local times). As I reported
in the last Round-up, UNDERGROUND has been picked up for a second season.

MEL GIBSON, KURT
RUSSELL, KATE HUDSON TO STAR IN WESTERN SERIES ‘BARBARY COAST’!

Mel Gibson will be
co-writing and directing as well as starring with Kurt Russell and Kate Hudson
in BARBARY COAST, based on the history book of the same title by Herbert
Asbury, whose GANGS OF NEW YORK was filmed by Martin Scorcese. The story of the wicked early days of San
Francisco during the Gold Rush of 1849, it will be produced by the Mark Gordon Company , who currently
produce QUANTICO, CRIMINAL MINDS and GREY’S ANATOMY.

While the beautiful and
talented Hudson is a newcomer to the genre, her co-stars are not. Mel Gibson played the lovable scoundrel
MAVERICK (1994), the Revolutionary War hero in THE PATRIOT (2000), and even
voiced John Smith in Disney’s animated POCAHONTAS (1995). Kurt Russell is a Western icon ever since
playing Wyatt Earp in TOMBSTONE (1993), has recently starred in both HATEFUL 8 (2015)
and BONE TOMAHAWK (2015), but hasn’t done a Western series since he co-starred
with Tim Matheson in THE QUEST (1976).

CELEBRATE JOHN WAYNE’S
BIRTHDAY WED. MAY 18 AT THE AUTRY!

Rob Word’s Word On
Westerns will salute the Duke with a gathering of friends and family, including
son Patrick Wayne, granddaughter Anita Wayne LaCava Swift, and co-stars Robert
Carradine (THE COWBOYS), Paul Koslo (ROOSTER COGBURN), and author and historian
Chris Enns. These one-of-a-kind events
have been so packed of late that there have been some wise changes made. It will begin at eleven – not noon – and at
the Wells Fargo Theatre. The program
will begin with a performance by Will Ryan and the Saguaro Sisters, and
eventually everyone will segue across the courtyard to the Autry Crossroads
Café for lunch. Doors open at 10:30 a.m.
– don’t be late!

DOUG FAIRBANKS IS ‘WILD
AND WOOLLY’ SAT. MAY 21 AT THE EGYPTIAN!

Douglas Fairbanks stars
in this delightful comedy from nearly a century ago, as a sophisticated New
Yorker who wants to experience the Wild West – and boy, does he! It was
written by Anita Loos, the first brilliant screenwriter, and her husband John
Emerson. Loos started her career young – some
say as young as 12 – when, hanging out in her father’s nickelodeon theatre, she
wrote a scenario and sent it to the name and address on a film can in the
projection booth – to D.W. Griffith at Biograph
Pictures. (Forgive my digression,
but back in the 1970s, Anita Loos became a good friend of my mother’s, and
although I only met her briefly, it was a thrill – and I can remember every
word she told me about a nightmarish dinner party with Scott and Zelda
Fitzgerald.) The film is directed by Emerson, and the cinematographer is Victor
Fleming, who in 1939 would direct both GONE WITH THE WIND and THE WIZARD OF
OZ! Presented with a live piano
accompaniment by the Cliff Retallick, this is part of the Egyptian Theatre’s
long running Retroformat series, showcasing long-unavailable silent films shown
in 8mm or 16mm. Learn more HERE.

THAT’S A WRAP!

Coming soon to the
Round-up I’ll have coverage of my visit to the set of IMPULSION, the Santa
Clarita Cowboy Festival, the TCM Festival, and a bunch of great interviews I
haven’t had a chance to transcribe. Have
a great week or two!

Happy Trails,

Henry

All Original Material
Copyright May 2016 by Henry C. Parke – All Rights Reserved